When we accommodate seniors, we help society

When I was in middle school, my grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I adored him, and as I grew older and understood how he experienced his life, I realized how excruciating it must be to not only lose control of your body, but in so doing to lose your place in the world. Toward the end of his life, he had no role to play. He couldn’t form new connections with people, couldn’t interact in any meaningful way with his surroundings. He was a vessel, tethered to the past but floating aimlessly in the now.

We all worry about what our grandparents’ or parents’ later years will be like. If they live locally, we ask: Will San Francisco accommodate them? Will it offer them a community or treat them as an afterthought?

If you’re like me, then your first instinct is to look at solving these challenges as an admirable, if charitable, task. But you should be thinking selfishly; not because your family members may need a San Francisco that is welcoming to seniors, or even because you will, but because in this age of cultural, political and technological upheaval, we are all suffering from the same symptoms as seniors (only to a lesser extent).

Seniors, especially those suffering from dementia, live in an ageist world that ostracizes them from the present. Aging and its mobility challenges leave them isolated from their neighbors. Retirement eliminates their economic contribution, making them unsure of their role in their community and longing to return to a more familiar era. And while seniors and those with dementia certainly have it much worsethan their younger neighbors, those problems should sound familiar.

Aren’t we all, to a certain extent, feeling isolated, wrong-footed, and nostalgic for simpler times? After all, the fierce battles over seemingly unimportant resources that occur in senior facilities — over who sits where in the dining room and who joins which card game — are not so different from the self-sorting, NIMBYism, and resource hoarding that is becoming more and more prevalent in San Francisco.

The symptoms the wider population suffers from — similar but less than what seniors experience — are brought on primarily by the disruptions created by new technology. Social media isolates us by tricking us into thinking we are friends with people when we really only know the contours of their lives. The sharing and gig economies rewrite the social rules about which roles and activities are appropriate for which places. Rules that used to be reliable givens now are out the window.

The upshot is that a lot of us feel, well, old.

San Francisco should focus its resources on responding to this challenge of accommodating seniors and then take the lessons it learns from those projects — whether they are physical interventions or social programs — and apply them to the wider city. We need to not only ensure that the city is accessible from a transportation perspective — ensuring that everyone can access the new modes of transportation that will spring up — but that it is accessible socially as well. Because, for all the benefit of increased mobility that ride-hailing, bike rentals and scooters provide, being able to get somewhere isn’t worth much if you feel unwelcome on arrival.

To learn more about this, I spoke with Gretchen Addi, a former associate partner at IDEO, a San Francisco design consultancy. Now active in the field of supportive aging, she pointed out that American culture, and especially San Francisco’s youth-focused, disruptive one, reinforces the idea that independence is the pillar of success. Which is (mostly) easy if you are young and able, but increasingly difficult as you age.

We thoughtlessly view having to ask for help, she says, as a form of failure.

To combat this, San Francisco should use the many tools at its disposal to reduce social isolation and strengthen community. The city has a Human Services Agency, but its services (understandably) target the disadvantaged. It should expand its offerings to focus on strengthening the social fabric for all San Franciscans. It could include a division focused on welcoming newcomers or people needing community, providing San Francisco 101 guides and introducing them to volunteer neighborhood outreach teams. We already have neighborhood disaster volunteers (NERT, Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) so this isn’t far-fetched.

Strengthening the support we offer to seniors will strengthen the entire city. As Addi says, “Older adults are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to social fabric.” Falling short on our responsibility to our seniors will only boomerang on the rest of us.

Lev Kushner is the founder of Department of Here, an urban brand strategy agency that helps places figure out who they want to be and how to accommodate their residents and visitors. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters.